Power holds off Berkeley and Caine to take overall Loughrea honours

SONIA O’SULLIVAN raced to her second successive victory in a week at the Great Ireland Run in Loughrea and then declared herself ready for the concluding phase of her build-up to the New York Marathon.

Sonia won comfortably in 25 mins 30 secs and that placed her 15th overall behind Ireland’s Seamus Power and Noel Berkeley as the combined men’s/women’s team were clear winners of the international team contest.

The race up front was exciting as Power fought out a ferocious contest with a strong international field. But the focus throughout was on O’Sullivan, who was some distance back running with a group of five men.

Valerie Vaughan (Blarney/Innscarra), who broke the course record in Rathfarnham a week earlier, posed a threat in the opening stages but she pulled up with an injury and so it was left to Pauline Curley, winner of the Dublin women’s mini marathon, to follow Sonia home.

“After last weekend I had a couple of days taking it easy and then started back training again. I ran two and a half hours in Limerick yesterday so I was a bit tired there today,” O’Sullivan said afterwards.

She admitted to feeling good after winning the Great North Run a week earlier when she set a new record for the half marathon.

“Generally you feel a little bit sore for a few days but I just ran really easy on Monday and Tuesday and gradually got back into the swing of things,” she said.

Now her focus is the marathon in the Big Apple. The training, under coach Alan Storey, she admits is somewhat of a learning curve. “Normally I never know what training I am doing until the day before. Even on Tuesday nights I have no idea what we are doing until I get there. I am not too worried about that. I just take it one day at a time,” she said.

O’Sullivan’s showing yesterday was all the more impressive, given that she had run for two and a half hours on the previous day.

“You need to get those hard runs done and it is better to do them by yourself in training,” she said. “It was great to be able to come out today after that run and be part of this race today despite the fact that I had run hard the previous day. It was great to be there with Pauline Curley, Seamus Power and Noel Berkeley and know that we did well in the team race as well. It is great to see Ireland on top.”

And there was nobody happier than Power, who did not begin serious training until the day after the All-Ireland hurling final in which his native Clare lost to Kilkenny.

Noel Berkeley, coming off big wins in Tinryland and Rathfarnham, was called up to replace Leevale’s Martin McCarthy who suffered an injury during the week and he was full of praise for the overall winner.

“He made it tough for us all out there,” said Berkeley who finished third two years ago. “He was the one who kept surging. At first there was a big group of us there but he kept surging and it the end it came down to a great race between three of us.”

It was when Andy Caine of Scotland made his move that the race was decided. Power reacted quickly and crossed the line in a new best time of 23:31. Noel Berkeley took second in 23:33 with the Scot, third in 23:36. Dermot Galvin, the former Providence student now back home in Clare, finished fourth ahead of Welshman, Chris Davies.

After a 4:40 opening mile the pace dropped slightly but, after three miles, the field began to split under Power’s surging.

“If you keep chipping away at a wall even with a small hammer it will eventually fall down,” he said. “I wanted to win this one. The cross-country season is about to start. We have our first squad session next weekend.”